In this new series, I am going to highlight a much-loved and talented footballer from the past. I’ll tell you a little bit about what I think their key qualities were that made them so special. We’ll go on to look at how best to re-live that legend in Football Manager, by naming a few current players who may be able to ‘mirror the magic’ of the superstar and potentially become your new FM20 hero.
Introduction When we last wrote about roles, we considered that the green ratings for roles when choosing one for a player was less about his actual ability in that role and more about an opinion based on facts, attributes and form. We looked, particularly, at Gabriel Jesus‘ ability and attributes. In game, the staff recommend playing him as an Advanced Forward, based purely on his best attributes. They feel that he would then play best as an Advanced Forward. This…
I could have called this piece, “Total Overloads Take 3.0” before settling on a more catchy title. Some might remember my old article exploring Pep Guardiola’s tactics and overloads. It’s okay if you do not, I don’t mind. There’s been so much change in my writing and tactics since FM19 that I don’t even remember everything myself. It has been an educative journey into football history and learning the intricacies of FM games. I prefer to think of my series…
I try never to buy backups. That is, I never want to buy a lesser player than one I’ve already got, to serve as a backup. I didn’t realise until recently that this was an unusual thing. Whenever I recognise the need for a backup, I begin looking for a better player than who I already have. The idea is that the new player becomes the regular, and the current player becomes the backup. This works particularly well when…
Let’s talk about Custom Views. This is part two. Part one is here. Football Manager 2020 generally does a really good job of providing an interface that is easy to navigate, telling you most of what you need to know on the majority of screens. Do you ever find yourself, however, flicking from screen to screen to see all of the information you wish to review before selecting your lineup for your next match?
Roles in Football Manager play a large part in the formation of your tactic. Whether you downloaded a tactic on a forum to use with your team, or you’ve spent hours upon hours tweaking around the game mechanics to find that all important tactic. Setting up your formation is already something that can be quite tricky. Some choose a formation based on what they like – have a clear preference. Others base their formation purely on what’s best for the…
Let’s talk about Custom Views. Football Manager 2020 generally does a really good job of providing an interface that is easy to navigate, telling you most of what you need to know on the majority of screens. Do you ever find yourself, however, flicking from screen to screen to see all of the information you wish to review before selecting your lineup for your next match?
In a series about Total Football, you might wonder why I am writing about Sir Ferguson’s Manchester United? While Ferguson’s Man United achieved amazing success between 2006-2009, they were not known for playing Possession-style, associated with Total Football. Or for that matter one cannot really pin point a specific style of play or formation to that legendary team. However, one constant that contributed to Ferguson’s success was his masterful management of his players. Sir Alex Ferguson was a people manager…
I’ve been playing this game steadily since CM 99/00 or so. In that time, I’ve accumulated a certain amount of understanding of the ways the game works, and that understanding has led to a core philosophy, as noted in my first article on this site, Players Are People Too. If you liked that, here are five ways to improve your game that I don’t see other people using very much.
Let me introduce you to the little brother of xG, Expected Assists (xG). Whereas xG tells you the likelihood of a goal being scored from a certain position Expected Assists tells you the likelihood of a goal being scored after receiving a pass. The two go hand in hand in real world football metrics, and there’s no reason why you can’t use them in FM20. We also add another metric to look at. There’s something to be learnt about where…